Iraq and Afghanistan

Today's paper has an Op-Ed whose purpose is to record for the month of April the many good things that were going on in Iraq during a period in which all we heard were reports of killing and mayhem. Some of these good news reports were important and I certainly had not heard them before, others were less so. I did not know that Iraq's educational television service began again on April 19 after a twelve year hiatus, that the inflation rate fell in March, or that nine residential districts in Diyala received new electricity supply through an energy-cooperation project with Iran.

Yet in spite of the good news items that we do not hear about, the killing remains out of control. Everyone now realizes that the attacks are by the Sunni Arabs (although al-Sadr's people still wave their fists at the Americans). The Shi'a remain restrained, but we are coming to realize that this restraint is explained by the fact that the government forces are nearly all Shi'a. Gradually, the fighting between the insurgents and the government has willy-nilly become a fight of Shi'a and Sunni Arab. In this, the worst fears of everyone are being confirmed. The situation is much worse than I thought if what I read today about the makeup of the commission parliament has set up to write the constitution is true. According to the story, of the fifty persons selected only two are Sunni Arabs (the same number as there are for the Christian community). This can only suggest to the Sunni Arabs that in a few months they will be living in a country in which they will have little or no say in what happens. In addition, many Shi'a on the popular level may want to use this opportunity for massive revenge. The Sunni Arabs are well aware of the danger. The United States is reported to be so concerned by the increasing Sunni alienation that they are increasing their pressure on the government to give the Sunni Arabs more of a say. But what we can accomplish in this manner is limited and all sides know it. We have been applying this pressure for months with little result. And if we apply too much pressure, everyone turns against us.

So it appears that we have a sectarian war on our hands. We call it an insurgency against a democratically elected government. This may make us feel good, but this is not the way the Iraqis and particularly the Sunni Arabs see it. I do not have a ready solution. Maybe it was simply inevitable, something that should have been foreseen more clearly than it was. Again, I would think there could eventually be a division of the country that could be a basis for an end of the insurgency. But I do not see this in the cards now, particularly when the watching world would condemn any result that destroyed the "territorial integrity" of the country (a sacred concern for the international community).